The Women in STEM Society at Essex was founded in 2020, with the intention of creating a supportive environment and a platform for under-represented individuals in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics degrees. Our society focuses on reaching out to women and non-binary people, however all of our events and socials are open to anybody who is passionate about celebrating STEM!
The main aim of the society is to promote diversity, inclusivity, and belonging in STEM. We aim to provide opportunities for individuals to learn more about STEM, and to inspire others to pursue a STEM career. Furthermore, our society often provides opportunities to increase our member’s employability skills, by providing CV and LinkedIn workshops, and working closely with our university’s career services. We also work with other women-centred societies to host events that focus on women’s issues, such as the gender pay gap and starting a family whilst having a career.
In 2021-2022, we hosted two roundtable discussion events. These events aimed to focus on issues that primarily affected women, but the events were attended by people of all genders which enabled us to have a really impactful discussion. For both events we collaborated with women-aligned societies and communities such as the women’s network and feminist society, as well as cultural societies, and the hidden disabilities society.
These roundtable discussions provided a safe space for everybody to discuss issues that often make us feel alone. It provided reassurance that none of us were actually alone in these issues we faced, and it raised a discussion as to how things could be changed at the university, or in wider society to make life better for women. Some discussion topics included: body positivity, being a woman in a STEM career, career vs having a family, and cancel culture.
As part of these roundtable discussions, we also fundraised for CARA, a local charity that works with survivors of sexual violence.
Our ‘How To’ series was a project which aimed to build our member’s employability skills. We hosted three events in this series in the year 2021-2022, and we hope to continue this project this year! We hosted a networking mixer event where our members watched a personalised message about what networking is and tips on how to network from networking expert Kelly Hoey.
Then we participated in networking events, and our members were able to get professional LinkedIn headshots taken by our university’s media team.
This event was followed up by a LinkedIn workshop, where our members worked on their LinkedIn profiles, and were taught what a good profile should look like.
We also hosted a presentation workshop, in which we collaborated with the Public Speaking Society, and our members were able to practice giving presentations.
Our panel discussion included six panellists that were members of staff at the university, PhD students, or alumni.
The panellists discussed their career and answered questions about when they faced any prejudice for being a woman in STEM. It was very interesting to hear how STEM careers have become more inclusive over time, but how there is still some prejudice towards women in certain career paths.
After hearing from the panellists, we hosted a Q&A session. We hope to host many more panel discussions like this in the future.
